Current

James
E. Baker, In the Common Defense: National Security Law for Perilous Times
(New York: Cambridge University Press, 2007),
404 pp., endnotes, attachments, index.

The
central theme of this book is that threats to the national security of the United States can and must be dealt with according to the
rule of law if basic freedoms and liberties are to be protected. Author James
Baker, a former legal adviser to the president, law professor, and judge,
writes that “this book explains why and how the good faith application of law
results in better security...and how national security law and process can
improve national security.” (1–2) But he offers few specifics: in explaining
“why,” he goes little beyond the implied maxim “obey the law”; With respect to “how,”
he is silent beyond making the point that a lawyer’s guidance should be sought
and considered before all major decisions are made.

In The Common Defense does provide a perspective on the lawyer’s role in national security.
The first four of its 10 chapters describe the nature of the post-9/11 threats,
the meaning of national security and national security law, and the
constitutional framework that guides its application. Subsequent chapters
examine the national security process, the use of military force and laws that
influence the executive branch decisionmaking in these areas. Of particular
concern to intelligence professionals, are the chapters on electronic
surveillance, intelligence, and homeland security.

Judge
Baker reviews the historical background of these topics from the American
revolutionary period to the present. And while his characterization of Benjamin
Franklin as “perhaps America’s greatest
intelligence officer” (71) is questionable at best, he is on firmer ground
discussing presidential departures from the law. He pays particular attention
to wiretapping and surveillance. Departures in this area, he contends, have
been corrected by judicial decisions restoring the rule of law. In this regard
he pays special attention to the president’s authority for warrantless
electronic surveillance and presents a detailed analysis from both sides. He
also reviews the statutes that address intelligence (127) as they are applied
to each of the basic functions of intelligence. Congressional oversight is
included for good measure. Turning to homeland security, he examines the
domestic threat, the complex structures and functions involved, the
distribution of authority, and especially legal issues since 9/11.

Two
general points are worth noting. First he argues that “lawyers are also
essential role players in sustaining the process of intelligence…and not just
speed bumps on the road to decision or used to clean up after the fact.”
(174–75) Second, he stresses that while lawyers and the “law can facilitate
response…homeland security, like intelligence, ultimately depends on the human
factor—leadership and the moral courage to face hard tasks and make hard
choices.” (306)

In The Common Defense concludes with a chapter titled “The National Security Lawyer,” which
provides guidelines for the roles an attorney must be able to play. To
illustrate the challenges, Judge Baker uses a hypothetical case involving the
need for a decision by the attorney general on a program for which he has not
been cleared. The judge suggests how the problem can be resolved without
sacrificing basic principles. What the book does not address is what to do when
an operational situation is not covered by existing law.

Nevertheless, In The Common Defense is a
valuable resource for better understanding of the rule of law and the pervasive role lawyers play in
the national security process.

The
reign of Justinian, the only Roman emperor never to visit Rome,
was distinguished by his conversion to Christianity and the outbreak of the
bubonic plague. At the time, the former explained the latter as sinners’
justice. But the real cause of the plague remained unknown, and society endured
periodic outbreaks of the Black Death until the 19th century. Philip Bobbitt
suggests an analogous situation with contemporary society’s view of
terrorism—one can see evidence of its existence, doesn’t understand why it
occurs, but knows that current methods of eliminating the threat won’t work. Terror
and Consent tries to clarify the issue.

Bobbitt
describes a solution that takes into account the major geopolitical and economic
changes occurring, in part because of globalization, while stipulating that the
“ways of thinking that brought us success in the past…are
ill-suited to the future.” (5) Unlike the IRA or PLO, which sought to replace
one nation state or government with another, the al-Qaeda Bobbitt describes
wants to eliminate the entire non-Muslim population of the world, use the
nonbelievers’ technology—WMD—to do it, and create a state of terror to replace
consent-based states. How can this be prevented? Bobbitt defines new political
and economic concepts—the market state, states of consent, wars on terror—to
develop his complex theories. Critical to their success is yet-to-be developed
strategic doctrine—though he proposes alternatives—the rule of law, and the knowledge
necessary to preclude, not just punish, terrorist acts. This means a change in
the definition of winning—preclusion, as in an anti-virus program. (213)

In
a chapter devoted to intelligence, information, and knowledge, Bobbitt develops
the idea that recent failures are better explained as “a miscarriage of the
intelligence process.” (289) It is essential, he argues, that steps be taken to
provide intelligence that precludes a state of terror—“by arresting a would-be
terrorist who has yet to commit a crime [or] by preempting the state that has
yet to complete its acquisition of WMD.” Success in these endeavors “depends on
estimates about the future.” (291) Strategies that brought victory in the past
will no longer do the job. He argues for new relationships between foreign and
domestic collection to remove constraints on data sharing; new techniques such
as data mining and less restrictive surveillance; an end to the “obsessive
focus on warrants,” for which he cites several precedents; and greater reliance
on civilian experts, despite the outsourcing implications. It follows from this
that new laws will be needed. He makes several proposals intended to speed implementation.
(417ff)

Bobbitt’s
ideas in these areas are not entirely his own. He cites several forward looking
analysts—Gregory Treverton at Rand, and Carmen Medina and Woodrow Kuhns at
CIA—who stress that analysts must stop explaining only what has happened and
concentrate on scenarios that examine what is likely to happen, using all
available expertise in the process even though this “points the way to
increased outsourcing of analysis.” (329) He does not advocate blanket
outsourcing, however: “rendition…outsources our crimes and puts us at the mercy
of anyone who can expose us.” (388)

In
sum, with regard to intelligence, Bobbitt concludes that reform should deal
with an intelligence process that gives authority with responsibility.
As concerns the law, he argues it is necessary to “work out what a state is
permitted to do in its search for terrorists and its efforts to suppress them.”
(530) Terror and Consent deals head-on with what Bobbitt sees as the new
terrorism of the 21st century and what must be done to keep it from succeeding.
It is not light reading, but it is very much worth the effort.

The
primary title of this book is Richard Clarke’s most memorable statement to the
9/11 Commission. The narrative is an elaboration of just what he meant.
Clarke’s impressive 30-year career in government gives him a perspective that
journalists and academics can never achieve and thus should be carefully
considered. He takes a realistic approach as he examines US failures in war,
terrorism, homeland security, cyberspace, and energy. In a key chapter titled
“Can We Reduce Intelligence Failures?” he reviews, all the intelligence
failures he can identify since the end of WW II. To make the point that these
are not his judgments alone, he cites a number of recent books that have
addressed the subject from various viewpoints, with special attention to Tim Weiner’s
Legacy of Ashes. But he does one thing that the others do not: he makes
specific suggestions for correcting problems and that is why the book is worth
reading.

But
his recommendations are not detailed fixes; they are suggestions providing no
specifics on how the changes can be implemented. For example, as one of his 12
suggestions for improving intelligence he asserts that the DNI needs “to
control all the US intelligence agencies and
their budgets…and to rationalize their roles and missions.” (150–51) He does
not address just how this is to be done. With regard to homeland security, he
suggests “maintaining an active and positive outreach program to the US Muslim community” and the creation of “an active Civil
Liberties and Privacy Rights Commission” to overcome suspicion about domestic
security programs. As for cyberspace, he recommends that all federal networks
be encrypted, that computer networks employ two-factor authentication systems,
and that IT security research be increased. On the topic of outsourcing he
hints at, but does not endorse, an interesting solution: pay intelligence
officers operating under nonofficial cover $250,000 per year and allow them to
retire on full pension at age 40. (109, 122ff) When it comes to international
relationships, he suggests acting “boldly to reestablish our moral leadership,
respect for international law, and support for human rights.” (356)

Whether
or not one accepts Clarke’s suggestions, he has clearly articulated his view of
the problems. It only remains for those still in government to decide if he has
it right and then take corrective action.

The
1974 publication of The CIA and the Cult of Intelligence[i]
set a precedent that some former CIA officers have elected to follow. The
results include sour outpourings of career disgruntlement and undocumented
claims of wrongdoing,[ii] malicious exposés of ongoing operations,[iii] and critical reviews of inadequacies an
author argues should be put right. Failure of Intelligence is mostly the
latter. The litany of so-called failures Goodman lists is not new, and he is
candid that his criticisms are based on his experience as a CIA analyst and his
assignments in the intelligence community, which he left more than a decade
ago. Unlike some other critical authors, Goodman notes successes (chapter
three) and offers ideas for correcting matters (chapter 13).

The
principal issues covered in Failure of Intelligence include CIA
“crimes”—covert action, rendition, lack of oversight, torture—9/11 and the
terrorist threat, the Iraq War, and the politicization of intelligence. The
last topic pops up throughout but is extensively covered in chapters five and
six. While each director since Helms gets some notice, Goodman allocates most
of his attention to Bob Gates—with whom he admits intense disagreement—and to
the elements that served under him, especially in the analysis of the Soviet
Union. Beyond charging politicization of official estimates, Goodman asserts
that intelligence conferences and research studies sponsored by the Center for
the Study of Intelligence were configured to “demonstrate that the ‘CIA got it
right.’” (154–55) Although he includes many quotes, these charges are not
sourced and neither are his claims that the Agency “provided carefully selected
materials to former consultants” so they could write reports supporting Agency
views. Curiously, he does not cite articles that disagree with this view.[iv]

Chapter
12, “DCIs and the Decline and Fall of the CIA,” covers only DCIs from
Casey to Goss, with an addendum from 2006 to the present. He compares this
group with their predecessors and finds them wanting. These are judgment calls,
but coming from an insider, they should be carefully considered.

The
final chapter summarizes what needs to be done—presumably to stop and reverse
the “fall”—with emphasis on the “what,” the “how” is ignored. Most suggestions
are familiar—tell truth to power, reform clandestine operations and covert
action, improve oversight, etc. But one is new: “demilitarize the intelligence
community.” (331–34) Goodman sees this as a redistribution of power, but he
does not suggest how it might be accomplished in the face of certain opposition
from the Pentagon.

If
the reader is not fooled by outrageous, undocumentable charges—NSA “broke the
fourth amendment” and the director of CIA “actively lobbied on the Hill to
permit CIA interrogators to torture and abuse suspects” (326)—and is willing to
make the effort, Failure of Intelligence presents a good summary of the
problems facing the CIA and the Intelligence Community today, though that may
have been an unintended consequence.

As
was customary at the time, Lord Burghley, adviser to Queen Elizabeth I,
instructed the lieutenant of the Tower of London to ask the prisoner “for the
alphabet of the cipher and if he shall refuse…put him on the rack.”[v] Used properly, the rake would leave the
subject with “few marks” and this qualifies “the rack” as one of the many
“clean techniques” that are addressed in Torture and Democracy. (4–5)
Author Darius Rejali, described on the fly leaf as “one of the world’s leading
experts on torture”—presumably its history not its practice—offers “discrete,
disciplined histories of each clean torture [technique] used...in the main
democracies...[where] they seem to go hand in hand.” (6, 8) His definition of
democracies is broad and includes Russia, the
Soviet Union, Nazi Germany, Vietnam, China, Iran, and North Korea. There are 17 chapters, nearly 400 pages, on
the techniques alone—techniques, he suggests, that do not arouse sufficient
public outrage because they leave few traces. Chapter 21 asks “Does Torture Work?”
and gives evidence that it produces “systematically and unavoidably corrupt
information” (469) but not in all cases. He acknowledges that his research
“does not prove that torture never works to produce accurate information…. [It
does] establish the specific conditions where torture may work better than
other ways of gathering intelligence.” (478)

In
a chapter with the curious title, “What the Apologists Say,” Rejali cites the
Battle of Algiers (1956) as an example in which “professional torturers…produced
consistently reliable information in a short time” and goes into detail to
explain their methods. (480) He even quotes “journalist Ed Behr, no apologist
for torture, …that it had an indispensable role in the battle.” (487) After
discussing several other countries where torture had mixed results, he
addresses its supposed use by the CIA. “According to CIA sources,” which he
does not cite, “fourteen CIA operatives [were] trained in six authorized
techniques” (500), which he mentions, though he adds that he thinks more were
authorized. In fairness, he goes on to quote one former Agency officer who
expressed objections to torture. (502) He then discusses the cases of several
al-Qaeda members and the situations at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo,
arguing that what some claimed as successes were in fact “persistent failures”
(508) and that the CIA limits on “enhanced interrogations...are almost
identical to those imposed by the Gestapo.” (503) In the end, he suggests,
there is more to the American story associated with renditions that will
surface in the future. In an appendix he cites sources that tell of American
and Vietnamese torture in Vietnam.

Torture and Democracy doesn’t radiate scholarly objectivity but doesn’t conclude with an
outright condemnation either. What it does do is provide a decent summary of
this controversial issue.

Outsourcing is a real problem for author Tim Shorrock. It
is not justified when Congress cuts the intelligence budget and the executive
branch simultaneously increases the requirements. Nor is it acceptable during
an emergency when new employees are authorized but not yet experienced. Since
9/11, Shorrock argues, outsourcing has created an
“intelligence-industrial-complex” that consumes 70 percent of the intelligence
budget and places national security in the hands of profit-making corporations
rather than the elected representatives of the public. Even worse, contractors
are now performing tasks that should be assigned only to federal employees, an
issue, as Jeff Stein points out in his review of the book, that even some
intelligence officers find intolerable.[vi] Furthermore, he argues, this situation has
created a revolving door for personnel who leave government intelligence
agencies and join corporate contractors and those who do just the opposite. Spies
For Hire attacks several contractors supplying intelligence
services—including the Disney Corporation for its work with the National Counterterrorism
Center—and their evil
profiteering. In his final chapter, “Conclusion: Ideology, Oversight, and the
Costs of Secrecy,” Shorrock does not mention ideology, never explains how
oversight will help, and what the costs of secrecy contribute to the problem or
the solution. And he does not even mention the one solution that would solve
the dilemma: sufficient positions at competitive salaries. Outsourcing may be
as damaging as Shorrock contends, but he fails to make the case or provide a
satisfactory alternative. Perhaps he could use some outside help.

General
Intelligence

A
handbook, according to Webster, is a ready reference intended to be carried at
all times. At 5 pounds and 8 by 10 inches,The History of
Information Security requires a backpack. It more nearly qualifies as a
reference work. Editors Karl de Leeuw and Jan Bergstra, from the Informatics
Institute, University of Amsterdam, have assembled 29 contributions from Europe
and the United States, in six parts, that provide a far-reaching view of
information security from the time that counterfeiting was a hanging offense in
England (199) to the contemporary concerns with identity management, where
penalties are less severe but professionally costly. The nine chapters on
communication security range from the rise of cryptology during the Renaissance
and the early use of postal interception for espionage purposes to examples in modern
cryptology. In between is a new study of NSA, with 291 references, that
discusses its role in the Cold War. There is a similarly stimulating analysis
of KGB Cold War eavesdropping operations that is based mainly on Russian
sources. The six contributions on computer security cover the history of this
relatively new field, as well as mathematical modeling and standards. Of
particular interest to the nonspecialist is the article on cybercrime that
discusses the threats from viruses, worms, malware and the like. There are
three contributions on privacy issues that deal with the conflicts arising from
the need for secure personal, government, and corporate applications. The final
article concerns information warfare, how it has changed since the telegraph was
invented, the significance of cyberspace, and critical infrastructure
protection issues that must be confronted.

Information
security is part of modern daily existence—personal, corporate, and government.
This work provides well-documented historical background and an astute
assessment of the role information security will play in today’s society.

Historical

In
a variation of the theme used in Exploring Intelligence Archives (see
below), Thomas Allen has selected 50 intelligence documents that had an impact
on history. They are introduced by former CIA officer Peter Earnest, now
executive director of the International
Spy Museum.
Each of the seven thematic chapters—“Secrets of War,” “Double Agents,”
“Counterintelligence,” “Bodyguard of Lies,” “Espionage Accidents,” “Defense of
the Realm,” and “The Secret State”—is preceded by a short essay. The first case
is of a letter from one of Sir Francis Walsingham’s agents apprising him of
Spanish plans to invade England—the Spanish
Armada. Its timely receipt allowed the Royal Navy time to plan for the attack.
Another example is a copy of the encrypted letter sent by Benjamin Church to
his British handler that was intercepted and decrypted by Washington’s
cryptographers. Other instances discuss documents in the Walker,
Ames, and Pollard cases. Not every case
involves a document. The exception is the hollow nickel that contributed to the
demise of KGB Colonel Rudolf Abel. One of the seldom seen documents, famous in
its day, is the memorandum— “Le Bordereau”—that helped send Alfred Dreyfus to Devil’s Island. Of current interest is a letter from
President Roosevelt to the attorney general acknowledging the Supreme Court’s
ruling that wiretap evidence cannot be used in court without a warrant, and
then authorizing wiretapping in cases of national security. Some details should
be corrected in the second edition: Whittaker Chambers was never mentioned in
VENONA, and the original form of the VENONA decrypts was paper obtained from Western Union, not radio intercepts. Allen has assembled
an interesting collection of documentary material that shows the importance of
espionage in history. It is an original, valuable, and informative book.

The
general circumstances of the Cuban Missile Crisis of October 1962 are familiar
to those who lived through it as well as to students of history, intelligence,
and international relations. And many, if not most, have subscribed to the view
that there was a genuine possibility, though a low probability, of nuclear war,
even after the Soviets admitted 30 years later that they had in fact placed
nuclear weapons in Cuba.[vii] As Max Frankel concluded in High Noon in
the Cold War, neither Khrushchev nor Kennedy would have let it happen—close
but not too close.[viii]One Minute to Midnight argues that the gap was much narrower than
perceived at the time by the public and by historians since. Author Michael
Dobbs writes that the two leaders, challenged by their military commanders,
came close to not having the final word. This is just one of the new facts
Dobbs reveals.

Dobbs
tells the tale chronologically from the viewpoints of both the antagonists. The
first six chapters cover events from 22 to 26 October. The balance of the book
is devoted to 27 October—Black Saturday—and 28 October when the crisis ended.
He is able to do this because of new materials—tape recordings, photos, maps,
memoirs—he discovered in US and Russian archives, and because he was able to
interview more than 100 participants from both sides and of many ranks who had
not told their stories previously.

One
startling fact he uncovered was that the photo-interpreters at the National
Photographic Interpretation Center (NPIC) had actually looked at images of the
nuclear weapons storage area in Cuba without
knowing it. The photointerpreters were looking for familiar signatures and
didn’t find them because of a chance diversion of the ships carrying the
weapons led to their temporary storage at an old Cuban artillery post. Their
location was not discovered, and they were later moved and readied to attack
the naval base at Guantánamo.

Dobb’s
re-creation of the events of Black Saturday are particularly interesting for
style and content. He tells of an unintentional U-2 overflight of the Soviet Union on that day and the president’s reaction
when he was told. He debunks several myths of the crisis, the best known being
the circumstances surrounding Dean Rusk’s “eyeball to eyeball” comment. A less
known but interesting variation concerns the efforts of journalist John Scali
and his meetings with Soviet official Alexander Feklisov to try and establish a
basis for resolving the crisis. The State Department and Scali thought that is
what was happening, but Dobbs, using his Russian sources, concludes that it did
nothing of the sort. (166–68)

Perhaps
the best part of the book is the chronological depiction of tension and
frustration—leadership meetings on both sides were spirited and not always
orderly. There were no simple answers, always competing alternatives reflecting
personal and organizational agendas, and no way to tell which was best.
Murphy’s law kicked in as well—things kept going wrong, and the military
clamored for an invasion. And yet the two leaders managed to control things.
Dobbs makes clear the Cuban Missile Crisis was not the singular victory for JFK
that the media suggested at the time and that sympathetic historians have
maintained since. Kennedy made secret bargains that gave Khrushchev much of
what he asked for. At times it is hard to understand why one side or the other
did not succumb to its military’s recommendations. For those who did not live
through the crisis, One Minute to Midnight gives a balanced, detailed,
sensitive account that is great reading.

Helen
Fry, The King’s Most Loyal Enemy Aliens: Germans Who Fought for Britain
in the Second World War (Gloucestershire,
UK: Sutton Publishing, 2007) 240
pp., endnotes, bibliography, photos, index.

During
the 1930s nearly 10,000 anti-Nazi Germans and Austrians—mostly Jewish— fled to Great Britain. When the war began, 4,000 volunteered for
service, swore allegiance to the King, and were initially placed in a Pioneer
Corps—with men mostly digging ditches and women doing domestic duties.
Beginning in 1942, some were accepted into combat units, and about 100 joined
the Special Operations Executive (SOE), the Army Intelligence Corps, and MI6. The
King’s Most Loyal Enemy Aliens tells the story of these volunteers who
served as POW interrogators and also in operations behind enemy lines. After
the war, several thousand were inducted into the Intelligence Corps and sent to
Germany to interrogate war crime suspects.
Helen Fry has documented for history a heretofore little known contribution to
intelligence in WW II.[ix]

Nikolai
Yezhov, head of the NKVD from 1936 to 1938, was the avatar of administrative
annihilation—the Great Terror. He arranged for the execution of some 3,000 NKVD
officers and more than 200,000 party members, staged the Moscow
show trials, purged the Army high command, and sent millions to labor camps.
Yet, Getty and Naumov barely mention these achievements; they focus on how
Yezhov attained and then lost power under Stalin. A Bolshevik from the start
and described by colleagues as friendly and pleasant, Yezhov gained recognition
as a party secretary who mastered administrative personnel procedures and sent
articulate reports to Moscow on time. He
eventually maneuvered to win acceptance to the Communist
Academy in Moscow
and never left that center of power. In 1934, he supervised the investigation
of the Kirov assassination and “demonstrated
his willingness to relentlessly pursue any hint of disloyalty.” In 1935, Stalin
made him a member of the Central Committee. The following year Stalin announced
that Yezhov was replacing the unpopular Genrikh Yagoda as head of the
NKVD—”surely things would go smoothly with Yezhov at the helm.” (205) And they
did—for Yezhov—until his arrest, without any public announcement, in late 1938
after one of his assistants defected in Japan. At his closed trial Yezhov
renounced a confession, was shot, and never again mentioned officially in
Stalin’s lifetime.

In
this well-documented account, from Soviet archival sources, Getty and Naumov
fill in gaps about this fanatical executioner’s early life, but they leave half
the story untold. Perhaps another volume is forthcoming.

Don
Hale, The Final Dive: The Life and Death of “Buster” Crabb (Gloucestershire, UK:
Sutton Publishing, 2007), 260 pp., note on sources, photos, index.

In
1956, expert diver Lionel “Buster” Crabb, made two dives under the Soviet
cruiser Ordzhonikidze but only surfaced
once. One year later, a headless body was found in a diving suit like Crabb’s.
It was buried with Crabb’s name on the tombstone. Four years later journalist
Bernard Hutton claimed in his book Frogman Extraordinary[x]
that Crabb was alive and serving in the Soviet Navy. The book included a photo
of a man identified as Crabb. Some family members believed Hutton’s story, few
others did. A 1990 book, Frogman Spy,[xi] reported new but inconclusive evidence that
Crabb had survived, served the Soviets, and died in a Czech nursing home. The
Final Dive goes over it all again and adds much new detail about Crabb’s
family, his links to MI5, the Cambridge Five, Ian Fleming, and Lord
Mountbatten. The author interviewed Crabb’s family members and some of his
former colleagues, had access to letters and diaries, and claims to have found
references to Crabb in the National Archives in Britain
and the United States. But he does not provide
any source notes, and he neglects the firsthand assessment of Nicholas Elliott,
the MI6 officer in charge of the operation.[xii] In the process, Hale adds clumsy errors that
detract from his analysis. For example, Anthony Blunt did not head the
Cambridge Five (229) and Heinrich Müller, head of the Gestapo, was not Philby’s
Abwehr contact (85). Donald Maclean did not work for MI5 (85), and Burgess
joined Philby in America in 1950, not 1944.

While
Hale ignores the claims of Crabb’s death in Czechoslovakia,
The Final Dive is otherwise a comprehensive picture of what is known and
alleged. But it is not easy to tell the difference. In the end he admits to
only one certainty—the fate of Lionel Crabb remains a mystery.

The
People’s Republic of China often conducts
espionage by relying on large numbers of people, each producing relatively small
amounts of intelligence. The case of Larry Chin followed a more traditional
path. Canadian journalist Tod Hoffman explains how Chin was recruited before
being hired by the CIA and spied for 30 years before retiring with a medal and
a pension. He was caught in 1981, tried, convicted, and sentenced to 133 years
in prison. Although most of these facts were made public in 1985, Hoffman adds
much new detail concerning Chin’s background, how he was detected, how he came
to confess, and why he committed suicide. That Hoffman was able to accomplish
this is due to the availability of court records and the cooperation of the FBI
special agents, whom he identifies, who worked the case.

The
most interesting aspects of the case concern the details of his recruitment by
the Chinese, how he was detected, and how he came to confess. As to his
discovery, a CIA agent in the Chinese Ministry of Security indicated to his
case officer that a Chinese penetration had taken place somewhere in the US
Intelligence Community. As required by law, the FBI was alerted. Hoffman
describes the lengthy investigation that ensued and how Larry Chin, by then
retired, came under suspicion. The FBI learned that Chin had a complex personal
life that he managed to conceal from the CIA. He passed his polygraph
examination, and no one suspected his years of espionage or his affection for
women and gambling. Motivated more by self-interest than a belief in communism,
he hid his illegal earnings and lived modestly. By checking his finances and
interviewing former colleagues, the FBI gradually uncovered the truth. When
convinced Chin was the right man, bureau agents devised a clever scenario to
elicit his confession.

The
Spy Within is a well-told story about a spy who beat the security
system and couldn’t resist telling the FBI how he did it.

The
choice of adjective—splendid, super, neat, cool—to describe Exploring
Intelligence Archives might identify a reviewer’s generation, but it will
not change the evaluation of the quality of this singular work of
historiography. Exploring Intelligence Archives challenges the
assumption “that the real story behind policy-making is usually either hidden
or excised from the historical record.” (8) Seldom does the documentary record
speak for itself, and the authors have applied a clever method to assess what documents
really tells us, whether the message is deceptive, and the extent to which it
has been interpreted accurately by historians and journalists.

Various
scholars examine 11 cases in this work. In each case, one provides background
and an overview of essential details, which is followed by reproductions of a
document or documents in question. Then comes one or more analyses of their
content. Oleg Penkovskiy’s contribution is a case in point. Former CIA officer
Charles Cogan asks whether Penkovskiy was “the spy who saved the world” as
claimed by Jerrold Schecter and Peter Deriabin in a book of the same name.[xiii]
Cogan concludes that the claim was an
exaggeration since Penkovskiy made no real-time contribution to the Cuban
Missile Crisis, although the manuals he provided were a confirming factor—along
with aerial photography—in the conclusion that offensive missiles were present
in Cuba. Len Scott analyzes two other documents, one to assess Penkovskiy’s
bona fides, concluding that he probably was genuine. The second document, based
on Penkovskiy’s first debriefing in London,
challenged the conventional wisdom that the Soviets had in fact not deployed
nuclear weapons outside Soviet territory. In this case he was correct, but
Scott points out that the official US view was not changed until further
evidence was acquired.

The
other cases include French military intelligence and its response to German
remilitarization of the Rhineland, the creation of the British XX committee
that ran the Double Cross Operation against Germany during WW II, developments
in Europe in 1946, the interrogation of Klaus Fuchs, the KGB view of CIA and
other Western espionage against the Soviet bloc, and the Butler Report, the
study of British intelligence prior to the Iraq War.

Exploring Intelligence Archives is a fine contribution to the study of intelligence and
its role in foreign policy.

The
movie U-571 depicted the capture by US sailors of a German U-boat and
the Enigma codes it was carrying. These enabled code breakers to read German
messages and intercept their U-boats at sea. The movie did well at the box
office, but in Britain it caused a furor
because the feat had been performed by the Royal Navy, not Americans. The movie
makers knew this too, and The Real Enigma Heroes tells of unsuccessful
attempts made while the movie was in production to get mention of the truth in
the credits. The producers refused because they said they had changed so many
of the details, including the location, the U-boat designation—the real sub was
U-559—and the fact that their fictional sub hadn’t sunk, as U-559 did in
reality, taking with it two Royal Navy sailors as they transferred Enigma
documents up and out of its communications room. Shanahan documents the story
with first hand accounts, official records, biographical data, and photos of
the crew. Considerable space is also devoted to the memorial association formed
to remember the event. The Real Enigma Heroes corrects the historical
record.

Intelligence Abroad

Former
Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) analyst Michael Cole felt an
“urgency in writing this book” that was “exacerbated by the increasing signals
in 2007 that the United States was readying
itself to wage war against Iran.” (xiv) This
confession of analytic prowess, gained after 29 months of service “amid the
dullness and the ugliness that an intelligence officer deals with on a daily
basis,” (xv)—service he found boring—sets the tone of SMOKESCREEN. It is
a critical chronicle that runs from his deficient training—”death by
PowerPoint”—to his strategic world view—that America, not al-Qaeda, has made
the world a more dangerous place after 9/11. In between he complains about CSIS
tolerance of incompetence, ingrained institutional racism, the high value
placed on “spineless intelligence officers” (70), and the lack of a foreign
intelligence collection mission. He also finds that the
“need-to-know-principle” is self-defeating and that there is a need for more
oversight (undefined). He concludes that the “US
intelligence Community remains a mess.” The corrective, he suggests, citing
some wisdom found in “The Intelligence Officer’s Bookshelf” (92), is with
people not organizations, though he is not optimistic of success. Nevertheless,
in chapter six, “Fixing the System,” Cole presents pages of recommendations for
improvement. There is nothing profound or unexpected there, just common sense.
But nowhere in his book does Cole address a key issue: why he wasn’t willing or
able to stay and help correct the deficiencies. Instead he moved to Taiwan.

[iv]Bruce D. Berkowitz and Jeffrey T. Richelson, “CIA
Vindicated: The Soviet Collapse Was Predicted,” The National Interest,
Fall 1995: 35–46. See also Douglas MacEachin, CIA Assessments of the Soviet
Union: The Record Versus the Charges on line at
http://www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-of-intelligence/csi-publications/books-and-monographs/cia-assessments-of-the-soviet-union-the-record-versus-the-charges/3496toc.html

[xiii]Jerrold Schecter and Peter Deriabin, The Spy Who
Saved the World (Brassey’s Inc, 1995).

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